Pere Lachaise: No Tourists

Finally we were able to find a Paris attraction not completely overrun with tourists: Pere Lachaise Cemetery.  Here we were able to view the final resting place of some very notable residents among them the playwright Moliere, dancer Isadora Duncan, and writers Balzac, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas. The celebrated artists in residences include Corot, Delacroix, Pissaro and Max Ernst. The cemetery is also home to composers Bizet, Rossini (remains now in Florence) and violinist Stephane Grapelli who along with guitarist Django Reinhardt founded the Quintet Hot Club of France and created the oh so Parisian gypsy jazz sound.

Many fans still leave flowers and gifts at the graves of rocker Jim Morrison of the Doors, the iconic french singer Edith Piaf and Polish composer Fredrick Chopin. And the admirers of the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wide, leave lipstick kisses on his glorious art deco tomb.

We came upon the grave of Joseph Spiess, the first patent holder of the rigid airship, whose tomb exhibits a relief of his design. I was searching for and was pleased to finally find the modest head stone of Felix Nadar. Nadar, born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, was a colorful balloonist and noted photographer credited as the first to take aerial photographs (1858).

Finally, I was pleased to pay homage to George Melies, the early film pioneer and father of special effects. Creator of the multiple exposure, time lapse, dissolve and other techniques. His most well known film ‘Voyage to the Moon’ is a whimsical fantasy which famously features a canon fired space capsule which lands in the eye of the man in the moon.

The delightful 2011 Martin Scorsese film Hugo pays tribute to George Melies, and is well worth viewing. Additionally, this trailer for a collectors reissue DVD of ‘Voyage to the Moon’ offers a taste of the Melies pioneering film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEGIyo-dKmA

Now for the Music

Stephane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt perform their gypsy jazz standard Minor Swing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LkgsHsIQkk

Parisian chanteuse Edith Piaf, affectionately known as’ the little sparrow’, sings her well known La vie en Rose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKJ9bvdgNvk

Less upbeat, but certainly appropriate for this post, Frederic Chopin’s Funeral March:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-9wXQpzESo